1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to computer storage devices and is more specifically related to rotating or solid state drives that are hardened to withstand electromagnetic pulses.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since the Manhattan project in the 1940s, governments and businesses have been worried about the effects of nuclear explosions on electronics. At first, the concern was limited to the damage cause by blast and radiation. Later, however, as microelectronics (e.g., transistor-based) technologies began to dominate military and civilian use over vacuum tube-based electronics (vacuum tubes being more resistant to EMP effects), the concern expanded to include a phenomenon called “electromagnetic pulse” (“EMP”). Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent by the US Government on nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s to determine the characteristics of electromagnetic pulses on various military aviation and weapons systems. Shielding was designed and equipment modified to avoid damage from a nuclear event. But this work addressed military requirements and not the needs of the private sector.
Generally, EMP protections are implemented at the “site” level, along with construction and design to protect a site from nuclear blast and radiation. Data centers are included among such sites, and there are numerous data center designs that are EMP protected. However, like most military implementations, these data centers are designed to generate power from within, so that EMP damage through the power lines can be eliminated. This solution is quite expensive, and not useful for personal computers. However, given the concerns over nuclear proliferation and the possibility of a terrorist nuclear attack, the interest in providing protection for critical data for non-military uses has become acute.
Most personal computer owners who attempt to address EMP risks use uninterruptable power supply (“UPS”) systems such as the Schneider Electric APC BACK-UPS PRO line of uninterruptable power supplies. These UPS systems include surge protection to block EMP impact on the connected devices. However, this APC UPS and most other surge protection devices protect against a relatively low number of joules (hundreds of joules) whereas a lightning strike or other EMP event could produce 5 billion joules of energy or more. With this amount of energy, the electricity could easily jump through all wires within the UPS, causing energy to follow to the connected devices.
The other option for the personal computer owner is to disconnect the hard drive by operating the computer wirelessly and with a battery. The disadvantages of this solution is that eventually the battery needs to be recharged, opening the system to EMP risk during the recharging.
The present invention eliminates the issues articulated above as well as other issues with the currently known products.